The nexus between climate change and human mobility is an area of increasing importance for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. Broadly, different forms of human mobility—such as migration, displacement, or planned relocation—can be a caused, shaped, or influenced by climate change, either in a harmful way (i.e., loss and damage, “maladaptation”) or as an adaptive strategy.

In the context of the Global Goal on Adaptation and the nascent targets and indicators under the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, there is an opportunity to address this nexus and answer two key questions: How can adaptation prevent harmful human mobility, and how can human mobility advance adaptation targets?

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What we are aiming to understand: The climate-mobility nexus

Climate change adaptation is highly context-specific and must correspond to different geographic, environmental, economic, and sociocultural characteristics. Similarly, human mobility depends on a complex set of factors that include perceptions, agency, ability, and decision-making processes around the movement of individuals, households, or communities.

For example, the same kind of migration or relocation can become a functional adaptation strategy or a form of loss and damage that deteriorates livelihoods, social cohesion, and wellbeing, based on the specific context and the interplay of policies and practical actions.

Therefore, the challenge lies in identifying where—and how— human mobility can function as an adaptation strategy, and where in-situ adaptation is required to prevent the involuntary movement of people. Beneficial kinds of mobility can include safe, orderly, secure, and legal migration as well as participatory and community-driven relocation that reduce exposure, reduce vulnerability, and strengthen adaptive capacities.

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Where we want to land: Thematic and dimensional targets

As mentioned above, both human mobility and climate change adaptation take place in concrete, specific contexts that are geographically, environmentally, economically, and socio-culturally determined.

The UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience urges Parties (and invites non-Party stakeholders) to “accelerate swift action at scale and at all levels” towards achieving, inter alia, seven thematic targets “by 2030 and progressively beyond.” These targets cover the main adaptation sectors that are present in most countries’ NAPs and adaptation components of NDCs: water, food, health, ecosystems, infrastructure and human settlements, livelihoods, and cultural heritage.

In addition to these thematic targets, the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience also includes four dimensional targets in relation to the iterative adaptation cycle:

• 10 (a) Impact, vulnerability, and risk assessment
• 10 (b) Planning
• 10 (c) Implementation
• 10 (d) Monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

Work towards operationalizing these targets currently takes place under the two-year UAE-Belém work programme on indicators, which was launched at COP28/CMA5 in 2023 and will conclude at COP30/CMA7 in November 2025. The work programme is carried out jointly by the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and aims to identify and, as needed, develop indicators and potential quantified elements for both the thematic and the dimensional targets.

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How we could get there: Making connections, sector by sector

It is clear that human mobility has potential interconnections to all of these thematic areas. The following figure illustrates some examples of such interconnections, which can be both active or passive, direct or indirect, and positive or negative depending on a range of circumstances and factors.

Under the UAE-Belém work programme, Parties and the mandated experts are working to develop a set of indicators for measuring progress achieved towards the targets. Within this process, indicators related to human mobility could capture key aspects related to the needs of people affected by mobility, their specific vulnerabilities, their protection, and adaptive elements that ensure their access to water, sanitation, food, shelter, and basic essential services; their health; their livelihoods; their cultural heritage; and a sustainable relationship with natural ecosystems, including through nature-based solutions.

Not all issues around human mobility can be addressed under a single thematic target, and many will depend on interactions and synergies between sectors. For example, seasonal migration from rural areas is closely interlinked with targets 9 (b) and (f) on agricultural production and livelihoods, but also (a) and (d) on water and ecosystems. Similarly, adaptation for migrants in urban destination areas is not only connected to target 9 (e) on human settlements but also to targets 9 (a), (c), and (d) on water and sanitation, health, and livelihoods. Another potential link is between migration or relocation and target 9 (g) on the preservation of cultural heritage and target 9 (c) for both physical and mental health aspects. Recognizing this fact, the CMA6 decision explicitly invites the convened experts to collaborate “across both the thematic and the dimensional targets with a view to identifying synergies.”

Cross-cutting considerations that are relevant for one or more target(s) have been identified under the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience and for the development of indicators. These include, among others, gender, human rights, intergenerational equity, social justice and inclusion, health, children and youth, Indigenous Peoples, and migrants. This provides a sort of mandate for experts on climate change and human mobility to provide inputs into the GGA process and highlight examples of climate mobility as a positive adaptation strategy. There is also space for migration studies to provide evidence on mobility as an effective adaptation strategy or as a harmful response in the context of loss and damage.

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Why we need an open mind: Inter-nexus dynamics

Rather than only being thematic areas, each of the seven targets represents a nexus in its own right. For example, the climate-health nexus encompasses aspects such as decarbonizing the healthcare system, climate-proofing health services and infrastructure, understanding of changing disease vectors, and responding to health-related non-economic losses.

Similarly, the climate-food or the climate-biodiversity nexus have separate treaties and processes, separate platforms and networks, separate communities of researchers and practitioners. Connecting these nexuses to the climate-mobility one offers novel challenges but also holds the potential to identify holistic solutions that contribute to multiple workstreams and efforts at once.

These interactions exist not only at the global but also the regional, national, subnational, and local level. For example, the Kampala Ministerial Declaration on Migration, Environment, and Climate Change or the Chile Declaration and Plan of Action are two regional initiatives related to climate change and human mobility that reach beyond the climate change community.

Regional bodies and platforms can also play an important role in connecting these thematic nexuses through their institutions, working groups and strategies, such as the African Union’s Migration Policy Framework and Action Plan. 

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When we can see results: A solutions-focused perspective

The climate-mobility nexus is complex, and so are its interconnections with different thematic targets as well as other relevant nexuses. Integrating these considerations into the work of fleshing out the GGA is challenging but also of vital importance.

Migrants, displaced persons, relocated communities, family members staying behind, and those who are unable to move are among the most vulnerable groups on the frontlines of climate change. Putting them at the centre of adaptation planning and implementation could help to protect their lives, livelihoods, health, wellbeing, and dignity, as well as prevent economic and non-economic loss and damage.

It is likely that the final set of indicators adopted at COP30/CMA7 at the end of 2025 will inform the adaptation ecosystem within and beyond the UNFCCC for the foreseeable future. The UAE-Belém work programme provides a one-time opportunity to strengthen operational linkages between adaptation and mobility and “improve coherence and synergies between efforts pertaining to [...] displacement, planned relocation, and migration, in the context of climate change impacts” as called for in the first Global Stocktake. The seven thematic targets of the UAE Framework are an evident entry point to do this based on robust evidence and lessons learned from research and case studies across the world.

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For a full overview of the current state of negotiations around the GGA and the operationalization of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, SLYCAN Trust has prepared a technical briefing capturing the state of play after COP29. Access it here as a reference document for the political and technical process on the GGA in 2025 and beyond.

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